


Failed Fixing with Broken Tools

by Nyaow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e23 Sacrifice, Episode: s04e07 It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester, Episode: s05e14 My Bloody Valentine, Episode: s05e17 99 Problems, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Episode: s06e12 Like a Virgin, Episode: s06e22 The Man Who Knew Too Much, Episode: s07e21 Reading is Fundamental, Episode: s08e08 Hunteri Heroici, Episode: s08e22 Clip Show, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Sam Winchester, Soulless Sam Winchester, Tumblr, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyaow/pseuds/Nyaow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's soul is made of jagged pieces with sharp sides that cut anyone who comes too close. He should have known this was doomed from the start. </p><p>Or maybe he did, and was just selfish enough to let it happen anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Failed Fixing with Broken Tools

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted first on tumblr, along with two other stories I'm going to put here. I'm just transferring them over. I apologize in advance. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, slight AU between seasons seven and eight where Sam looked for Dean.

Sam’s twenty-five, exhausted with this stupid smile on his face during Halloween of all times and demon blood pumping through his veins. Here are angels -  _angels,_ who his brother said never existed but here they are, this one with the blue eyes and inappropriately messy hair actually went and pulled him out of hell would you look at that - real and alive and  _existing._ He sticks out his hand because it’s habit and his mind’s a little cloudy anyway, that stupid fucking smile on his face because he’s just  _so damn sure_ -

"Sam Winchester, boy with the demon blood."

The smile disappears and Dean moves closer impossibly fast, one flick of the wrist and they’re touching (four months of hell, fucked up relationship intact because why not). His protective mode is on full force, offended unfairly on baby brother’s behalf like he always is because oh yeah, Sam’s a liability but forgot there for a moment, happy because he thought someone (something?) other than a demon could like him. He’s dirty and he’s awful and Dean’s wrong about this not being his fault since he’s pretty sure angels wouldn’t hate him if it wasn’t. 

Then Uriel gives some bullshit excuse to smite the town. 

All Sam can hear is white noise. 

 

 

Over a year later and the Apocalypse is here because Sam can’t listen to reason. The panic room’s behind him, door closed now and Dean won’t leave him alone, constant touching and illegal chick-flick moments and how he can do this Sam doesn’t even know because all that  _fucking_ demon blood is jacked up in his system. Veins a canal and Hell pollution - everyone knows it, no one’s said it in months but they should because a voicemail’s only so much of a reminder that no shit he should miserable all the time, he started this damn thing after all and he was screwed up long before that anyway.

A failure. And a monster. A  _vampire._

He’s gotten used to it. 

Sudden swish of a light brown trench coat and blinking bright blue eyes and  _oh yeah_ , he’d forgotten that Cas was here somehow. Dean’s finally gone, off taking a shower because Bobby convinced him (that he doesn’t need to be touching all the time, that he shouldn’t be, that he’s making himself dirty too) and Sam’s still stuck flopped on the couch, too weak from detox and his most recent seizure to so much as move. 

The angel brings himself roughly to eye level, which is a very un-angelic thing to do but Sam’s used to all these weird human tics now (his fault too, if he hadn’t let Lucifer free Cas wouldn’t have Fallen, of course). “You have a very skewed sense of your own person,” he says, catching Sam by surprise because he’s sick and dizzy and forgot angels are like demons and can read minds. “You resisted Famine’s final temptation. That’s no easy feat.”

No, no it really wasn’t, but he didn’t do it fast enough, screwed up in the first place, made Dean think it was his fault for not putting a devil’s trap in front of the door but Sam hadn’t thought of it either and his brother should be exempt from blame until the world implodes. But he mumbles a thanks, not in the right state to be arguing and not wanting to upset Dean if he comes back down because he inevitably knows even _Fallen_ angels aren’t Sam’s biggest fans, and twists, burying his face into his pillow. Dean who he wants back down here just so he can make this  _stop_ because the only thing worse than being told everything is his fault is being told it isn’t. 

Fingers touch against his hairline like Jess used to do when he had a panic attack and she tried to calm him down and - well, he got her killed and he doesn’t want to get Cas killed too.

"Oh, Sam," he hears the angel say as he starts to drift off - so softly he might even be imagining it, maybe. "What did we do to you?"

 

 

Developing less-than-platonic feelings for an Angel of the Lord is dangerous for the world’s worst antichrist, and even though he knows it’s never going to be anything but thoughtlessness and denial, Cas saying, “Sam, of course, is an abomination,” not two hours after, “Your voice is grating,” is nearly as heartbreaking as their first meeting. Dean doesn’t disagree either - knows it, will insist out loud that it isn’t true if directly asked until the day he dies, even, probably, and Sam’s phone grows heavy in his pocket. 

 

 

Cas is gone. Then Cas is back. And he’s the only one who says Sam can do this.

Later, Sam asks, “Why?” because he needs to know and he doesn’t have the time or energy to let potential answers twist around for hours in his head. “Because Dean resisted Michael?”

The angel looks up from where he stands leafing through one of Bobby’s books on Mesopotamian mythology, curious as usual and Sam’s starting to think maybe on the younger end, that Cas might be a kid brother too and that’s an easy way to explain why he at least puts forward the persona of socially awkward kindness. “No,” he says, though, shutting the book and fixing his eyes on Sam, gaze uncomfortably strong and his eyes aren’t blue like the sea or the sky but something else unrecognizable. “You are my friend. And friends trust friends.”

 _Friends._ He says this like it’s simple, like it’s okay, like it he means it but he can’t because Sam’s an abomination, because Sam’s the boy with the demon blood. But now the angel’s brow is creasing in concern or confusion or something and Sam wants this so damn bad so he can’t deny it and he doesn’t deserve it so he can’t confirm it and all that comes out is, “I’m doing it tomorrow.”

Cas nods, inches forward uncomfortably close with disregard to personal space (Dean complains, Dean always complains, and Sam was jealous but now he’s not). “This is a terrible end,” he says. 

"The Devil’s not going to jump in by himself," he says. "Besides, I’m going to Hell anyway. Should do something good on the way down, right?"

"This is not normal Hell, Sam. Hell I could save you from."

Sam swallows thickly. “Why would you do that?”

"Angels are supposed to be virtuous," Cas answers mildly, "but I quite selfishly wish you would stay."

Then he grabs the collar of Sam’s shirt and pulls him forward. His lips aren’t soft, chapped and rough, and Sam might not deserve this, but it’s the best goodbye he could hope for.

 

 

There’s something weird, something wrong, all his emotions muffled - a voice underwater, fingers trying to feel skin through a thick layer of sludge. But this is bad, hurts worse than hearing Cas say he and Dean share a more profound bond after Sam prayed to him for  _months,_ more than his own brother knocking him out and that goddess joining the ranks of things that know he’s a freak. There’s a belt gagging his mouth, a hand going towards his stomach, and fuck, he doesn’t want this, was told he needs this so they can fix him, and this needs to happen, but he can’t even -

The belt stops him from screaming and the pain curl’s from his abdomen, pulsates through his body and something else deep, deep inside him. Cas is not supposed to remind him of Lucifer, of fifty years in the Cage, of burning Grace doing this  _exact same thing._

Your soul, the angel says. It’s missing.

Lucifer will never let him go. 

 

 

Jump, not even four months later, and Sam hadn’t meant to end up this way, tangled in the sheets with a warring, living angel after being told he had someone else controlling his body without his permission again. “I didn’t do anything to you when I was soulless, right?” he asks, guilty enough as it is that he just gave an Angel of the Lord a handjob before talking him through sex because “go slow” is not a concept Heaven has.

Cas explains that he searched for Sam’s soul and the process was very painful, and this is the first time since then that Sam has let them touch. He feels awful, can’t imagine pushing away anyone who wants to be near him because that’s so few people, the numbers dwindling by the day. Now they aren’t touching either and he inches closer so their elbows and legs brush - skin to skin, Cas’ body more muscular than he thought under all those layers, was creepy to pull them away like that. “It’s not your fault,” the angel says, a broken record playing the same scratchy lyric over and over. 

"I’ve been told that for years, Cas," he answers. "Please, not right now."

 

 

Talking relationships with Dean is awkward but codependency means it happens, practically the same person with one soul, two bodies. He feels awful for his brother that he needs to be saddled with this terrible, tattered thing, and wonders if it ever hurts.

He expects something disappointed, probably, because Sam’s already fucked up enough and he knows he’ll fuck up Cas too one day, but Dean just says, “Be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

And he’s confused, of course, because Dean should be telling this to Cas, not the other way around - Sam, walking disaster of bad luck, just the boy with the demon blood, sleeping with an angel who came on to him or he’d never had done anything in the first place. “He’s your friend, too,” he says. “Is this just a protective brother thing?”

"No - maybe," Dean answers and this isn’t something they’ve encountered before. Sam hasn’t had a relationship since Jess. "Just, there’s a civil war going on up there, Sammy. And you’ve got that Wall in your head. He’s already spilled and that did enough damage as it is."

"Yeah, because I tricked him."

"It’s not that easy to trick an angel."

Sam tries not to be hurt, but it settles in anyway in the area behind his heart. 

 

 

Fingers to his forehead and Cas’ not-sky, not-ocean blue eyes are so damn sad. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he tells him. “I’ll fix you when this is over.”

Then the Wall begins to pull thin before snapping and Hell comes rushing in.

 

 

There’s no I Told You So. Just Dean saying, “I’m sorry.”

He’s thinking it, though. Sam knows he is. “It’s fine,” he answers. “You were right.”

"No, Sam, it’s not fine," Dean says. "He broke your head."

He was just a means to an end. He gets that. And it only makes everything hurts worse. Why did he ever think otherwise? He always had been. Most days he’s not even a person. 

"When’re you going to see it, Juliet?" says Lucifer from behind him, wearing Nick’s face today. "No one ever cares about you."

Dean’s eyes bleed and the blood bubbles. He doesn’t even flinch. “I’ve got it under control,” Sam says and it’s not quite a lie (even if Lucifer says it is). “Trust me.”

His brother doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t say it. Lets Sam win. “I’m getting you something to eat,” he says instead.

Sam looks out the window and lets his mind float. 

 

 

Dean’s downstairs with Kevin Advanced Placement (kid with a bright future inverted, won’t take long to figure out he’s fucked, the look’s familiar and sad) and Sam’s alone with Cas, Meg god knows where, and he’s eating this sandwich because he feels obligated. His crazy’s broken an angel’s mind, pulled it tight and snapped it in half, and it’s all his fault, always his fault, and this is a truth that never stops stabbing at his soul. 

"You’re troubled," Cas says, staring at him and Sam suddenly hates the idea of them touching all over again, the memory of the fingers pressed against the head and crippling Dean by using him. "Of course, that’s a typical aspect of your personality, so I tend to ignore it."

Now he looks down, away, doesn’t want to hear this - a constant breakdown of the few good things in his life falling in around him. “I’m just worried about you,” he says finally, honestly. Cas breaks his head and that hurts, but he understands and won’t stop caring. 

 

 

First Dean is back, then Cas, and there’s a world of cartoons Lucifer says is weirder than Hell, stranger than five thousand years of the Devil’s imagination and Sam wants to say that’s because it was harmless but he’s not supposed to answer anymore. The angel is great, all shiny and new with his sanity repaired from Purgatory breaking the spell, back to Sam where it belongs and at least this time the crazy lets him sleep. Most days the medication works, too.

Except now Cas wants to leave again, stick behind and things are weird because he  _did_ this (Lucifer’s saying he’s a masochist, pressed up real close against his back, cold fingers tickling up against his side and his crazy didn’t like Fred’s crazy because this is nearly a six month relapse) but that doesn’t mean Sam wants him gone. “I have made you worse, again,” Cas says when he tells him he can stay even though he’s supposed to be putting things in the car while Dean talks things out with hospital staff, his brother doing nothing but sending him on errands since this hunt started. Back to little kid treatment, apparently. “I should have thought through my actions.”

"It worked," he says because he doesn’t want to argue, not with Cas here and back and this moment of being alone together. "You just - if you want to stay, you can stay. That’s all I’m saying."

"That’s very kind of you, but I don’t think your brother would agree."

No, no Dean wouldn’t and inviting someone along has to be a two man effort. Eventually, he settles with, “Well, at least visit, okay?” and Cas agrees.

He never shows.

 

 

"Because he’s Cas."

Dean’s mouth goes tight around the edges, frown lines deeper than laugh lines and only getting worse - Sam knows it’s his fault, all his fault, because he was a bad kid and a worse adult and his brother’s had to put up with him every step of the way. “That excuse doesn’t work as good with me as it does with you, Sammy,” he says, turning his back, walking away.

"But, Dean -" He breaks off into a cough, wet and painful, red on his sleeve and on his mind but good this time, purification and salvation and maybe he won’t always be Hell-bound. Then he swears, knows he shouldn’t be down here with all the dust or his brother will feel guilty later. "This was a bad idea. I’m going back up."

"No!" It comes out loud, hurried, older brother to the little kid treatment and  _oh._

Sam frowns, and his chest feels tight like the corners of Dean’s mouth. “You don’t want me alone with him.”

"Yeah, basically."

"He’s  _Cas._ ”

This is the wrong answer, though, F on that math test in second grade that made him cry for hours, and his brother stops walking. Turns to look at him. “I’m not just going to pretend I didn’t know what was going on with you two,” Dean says, voice tight like his now-relaxed mouth and Sam’s failing lungs. “What he did to you - I mean, that would’ve been bad enough if you were just friends, but add everything  _else_ into the equation? If he were anyone else - and you know it too - he wouldn’t even be  _breathing_ right now. And what he just did to me?” he adds. “What if that’d been you, huh, Sam? You’re sick and I trusted you with  _Meg_  more than I trusted you with him for a reason.”

Tears burn behind his eyes, a dry pressure building. “You can’t treat me like I’m two,” he tells his brother. “Dean, you can’t. And anyway,  _I_ still trust him. I don’t like what he did to you, but he was controlled, remember? And he told you what was going on with me. He kept me upstairs, too.”

"Sorry, Sam, but that’s not enough."

"It should be."

Dean doesn’t answer right away. Then he says, “I can’t watch you go through that again,” and all arguments fail.

 

 

Finally, Dean backs off from his promise and gives them some alone time. It’s depressing, Crowley inside and Cas closing Heaven with him closing Hell and neither are delusional enough to know they’re not going to make it and maybe even his brother knows too because all Sam ever does is let people down. This is stupid, he thinks, shouldn’t make Cas deal with him right now when everything’s such a rush even though he knows that the angel came on to him instead of the other way around, and how that happened he still doesn’t know. 

Sticking his hands his pocket for warmth or a halfhearted attempt at self-esteem protection, he says, “I guess this is goodbye.”

Castiel nods. They aren’t touching because they  _can’t_ , Sam’s mind still caught on his fingers to his temple and hands to hands that triggered crazy all over again. “Yes,” the angel answers. “It would seem so.”

For a moment they don’t say anything, words gone. Then, “I love you.” It comes out more easily than he thought it would even though he hasn’t said it before because angels don’t know love. 

"You shouldn’t," Cas says. "I’ve done some very bad things to you, Sam."

"Love doesn’t always make sense."

"I am truly sorry. For everything."

It’s the closest to a genuine  _I love you_ that he can possibly get. He nods, knows he needs to get going and Cas does too. “Good luck, Castiel.”

"You too, Sam."

He takes a step away, backs up while the angel stays stationary where he is, and meets up with his brother by the doors of the ramshackle church. “Get those Gates closed, Sammy,” Dean says. “We’ll…figure this out when it’s over.”

The memory hits him strong, nine-years-old and curled up on his brother’s lap crying because Joan Carmichael called him a freak and he wishes he could do something like that again, tell Dean that he’s just so damn tired and he’s so damn sorry and he hopes dying is enough to make it up to everyone - Cas too, Bobby for sure, even Mom and Dad. A failure and a freak and  _I’m done trying to save you, you’re a monster, Sam._

"Right," he lies. "Just make it back, okay?"

Dean’s eyes scan his face. “I’m sorry,” he says and Sam knows it’s because of Cas and not because of the Trials. 

Then he’s gone and half a minute later they’re the  _whoosh_ of wings, and this time Sam hopes he’ll stay dead.


End file.
